The field of the present invention is cleaning systems for soft contact lenses.
There have been many devices considered over the years to automatically clean soft contact lenses. These devices have varied in their levels of effectiveness, safety to the lens and wearer, cost of materials required and cost of the device itself. The disadvantages in effectiveness and practicality of such devices have left the preferred method of cleaning lenses recommended by most manufacturers to be that of manual cleaning by the wearer.
The current, most widely recommended method of cleaning is for the wearer to wash their hands, remove the contact lenses, position the lenses in the cupped palm or between two fingers and physically rub the lenses with a finger in conjunction with applying cleaning fluid designed for the purpose. In recent years, this task has been made a bit simpler by the development of "all-in-one" contact lens fluid formulations. These formulations allow a single fluid to be used to store, rinse, disinfect and clean the contact lenses. However, due to the relative levels of effectiveness and practicality, no simple automated machine has been found to be in widespread use. Manual cleaning as described above remains as the predominant method of choice.
Manual cleaning has certain disadvantages. It is a delicate operation requiring great dexterity and subtlety of touch not suited to many people. Lenses can easily be dropped and lost or torn during this operation. To thoroughly clean the lenses, the operation can be time consuming. As the process is typically performed before retiring and/or after rising, such procedures can be inconvenient. Finally, wearers are typically faced with the problem of attempting to manually clean such delicate lenses without clear vision.
In addition to the foregoing obvious difficulties with manual cleaning, there are ergonomic limitations on the process. Rubbing the lens between fingers or with a finger placed in the palm can simply rub debris and substances into the lens or across the face of the lens. The action is one of scrubbing with the debris between the finger and the lens. There is no concurrent rinsing action to expel rather than rub in the debris and unwanted substances. Further, fingers are never truly clean and can simply add debris and substances to the lens itself.